Re: Kenneth Arnold's testimony

From: James Easton <pulsar@compuserve.com>
Date: Thu, 27 Nov 1997 23:01:47 -0500
Fwd Date: Thu, 27 Nov 1997 23:53:52 -0500
Subject: Re: Kenneth Arnold's testimony
Regarding...
>Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 15:35:08 +0100>From: Don Ledger <dledger@istar.ca>>Subject: Re: UFO UpDate: Re: Kenneth Arnold's testimony
Don wrote:
>You know it seems there are a more than a few attempts at pounding>a square peg into a round hole re the Arnold sighting. People keep>coming up with solutions but to only 3 or 4 of twenty points. None>of them match up.
Don,
The difficulty with Arnold's story is that there are
imponderables and it's unlikely we'll never quantify them.
With any report, it's not necessarily true that all of the
account is accurate, perhaps rarely so, and it may be impossible
to explain all the evidence.
>The fact is none of these aircraft were capable of the speeds clocked>by Arnold. The Gotha was not produced in large numbers. If you did>capture a few from the Germans when the war ended, why in the name>of heavens would you be testing them in the Cascade Mountains and>where did 9 of them come from and what is the point of testing nine>at once. and where the heck is the radar to test against them in the>mountains.
As we know, Kenneth Arnold later produced a sketch of one of the
objects which was apparently different from the others. I'm still
not sure which one of the nine objects this was supposed to
represent, i.e., where it was in the echelon and also why he
didn't impart this potentially important information to the Army
Air Force at the time.
However, there's a striking resemblance with the object portrayed
in that later sketch and a Horton GO 229 A-1.
I've uploaded a superb illustration of an 229 A-1 to my web site
at URL:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/pulsar/ho229A-1.jpg
I've been curious about this marked resemblance since becoming
aware of it some time ago.
But as you say, nine of them?
I would like to get Arnold's story straight on this. If we take
at face value, his reported claim (I don't suppose anyone has a
copy of Arnold's book they would like to loan me?) that this
object was different from the others, then of course we only have
one of them and eight of something else.
Still doesn't really make any obvious sense and, so far as I'm
aware, there's no evidence in the historical record re any such
secret testing of captured German aircraft.
I've also uploaded to my website, an illustration of a Horton
Ho-1X A Series aircraft, which, as it doesn't show the two jet
engines, resembles Arnold's sketch even more. It's at URL:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/pulsar/ho_ix_v1.jpg
It seems the Horton GO 229 A-1 and Ho-1X A Series were
essentially the same project.
Arnold's sketch is also similar to a Northrop "flying wing", but
I've long thought the most obvious objection to Arnold's objects
being a known aircraft was the trouble which Arnold innocently
caused.
The "flying saucer" hysteria which followed the media's attention
to his story was a major headache for the USAF, and 50 years
later still is, albeit to a lesser extent.
It seems inconceivable that if the Army Air Force, and
subsequently the USAF, knew the explanation, that they wouldn't
have done _something_ to indicate this, somehow reassured the
public without disclosing the full facts and saved themselves
much expense and continual grief.
It's strange though, that there is such a close match between
Arnold's sketch and the aircraft envisaged under the abortive
Horten "flying wing" project.
Perhaps even stranger is how some other German designs equally
resemble witness sketches of the Hudson Valley "boomerang".
For a new perspective on contemporary triangular, or
wedge-shaped, 'UFOs', there's also an interesting image on my web
site at URL:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/pulsar/p12.jpg
Visions from half a century past.
James.
E-mail: pulsar@compuserve.com